Putin bans Russian officials from using foreign words: ‘Degenerate West’

Russian government officials will be banned from using most foreign words while carrying out their duties under plans drawn up by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Putin made an amendment to a 2005 law designed to protect and support the status of the Russian language.

Officials will not be allowed to use words and expressions “that do not correspondent to norms of modern Russia,” the Russian government’s website said.

There will exceptions for foreign words that “do not have widely-used corresponding equivalents in Russian,” says the text.

A list of foreign-based words that can still be used will be published separately. The amendments do not mention any punishments for those who fail to respect the updated law.

Since launching the invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Mr Putin has said he wants to protect Russia from what he calls a degenerate West that he alleges is trying to destroy the country.

In a state of the nation address last week he blamed the West for starting the war and claimed that Russia responded with force “in order to stop it”.

Mr Putin claimed Ukraine “has become hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western masters, which have effectively occupied the country”.

He risked further inflaming tensions with the West by suspending participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control pact with the US.

The UK’s ambassador in Kyiv, Dame Melinda Simmons, said: “Nobody is responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine but Russia.”

Russian forces on Wednesday morning carried out relentless attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in their quest for a breakthrough in the year-long war, although one US official predicted few short-term territorial gains for Russia.

Bakhmut had a population of about 70,000 before the war but has been ruined during months of fighting as a focal point of Russian assaults and determined Ukrainian defence.

“The enemy continues to advance in the direction of Bakhmut. He does not stop storming the city of Bakhmut,” the Ukrainian military said in a morning briefing.

A Russian takeover of the small mining city would open the way to seizing the last remaining urban centres in the industrial Donetsk province.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video address late on Tuesday, said the battle for Bakhmut was “most difficult” but its defence was essential.

“Russia in general takes no account of people and sends them in constant waves against our positions, the intensity of the fighting is only increasing,”  Mr Zelensky said.